


Different

by aayaptre



Series: ATUS Works [2]
Category: Hermitcraft, Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, One Shot, Taurtis figuring out how to use an elytra asmr, grian really is no help
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-08-19 20:41:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20215990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aayaptre/pseuds/aayaptre
Summary: The Universe changed while Taurtis was asleep, how much has he really missed?-----(ATUS one shot!)





	Different

**Author's Note:**

> AAAAAA HEY ITS BEEN A GOOD WHILE HUH  
sorry it's taken so long for me to write something again! i think ATUS burned me out a bit eheh, but!! back now!! with some taurtis & grian fluff!
> 
> enjoy!

Taurtis wasn’t an idiot.

Sure, he was a little… preoccupied, occasionally, and yes, maybe sometimes he’d do somethings a little silly, but that was all just part of his charm. It’s what made Taurtis, Taurtis.

Taurtis wasn’t an idiot, but he kind of felt like one right now.

Everything was so… _new_, there was so much stuff, it was almost overwhelming. Grian tried his best to introduce him to it all slowly, as to not overwhelm him, but when even the most basic thing seems alien to you (_the look Grian had given him when he’d asked what a piston was, as if had always existed)_, you can't help but feel like you’ve been thrown into the deep end. Not to say he wasn’t excited, he loved looking at all the new blocks and items, and mobs,

_(“Grian!” Taurtis yelled, dragging his friend closer to the water's edge, “There’s tortoises in there!”), _

Even the new Redstone called to him, it’d taken a while for him to figure out how everything worked, but Mumbo had offered to teach him, seeing how Grian wasn’t going to be much help in that department.

That was also a new development.

The people.

_Hermits_.

He was a Hermit now too, he supposed.

They were all very nice, (perhaps a bit overly nice at first), and they tried their bests to make him feel welcome, but there was still a small part of him that felt like he was intruding on something. Overhearing stories of their adventures, of the game of tag that spanned through the server, the Civil War, the Build-Off, everything was so much _more_ in Hermitcraft, so much faster, and louder, Taurtis sometimes expected to blink and have the world rearrange when he opened his eyes again.

The most different thing, Taurtis was sure of, was Grian.

There were the obvious things, like the fact that he had big, purple wings sprouting out of his back, _(“No, Taurtis, not everyone has these. No Taurtis, you can’t get them,”) _and the magic was new, he was pretty sure. But there was also… subtler things.

Grian was softer now, it was the only way he could describe it. In Evo, he was loud, and brash, and had no issues with stealing and blowing up whatever he wanted to, within reason, he was never cruel, just… excitable. Now though, Taurtis noticed, he was more self-contained, he would still prank the others, he’d go out of his way to annoy them sometimes, but never to the level he did in Evo. Taurtis had been genuinely shocked finding out that Grian had been the one to come up with the flag game to end the war.

A small part of him was a little sad at how he’d changed. Not in the way that he’d rather have the Grian he knew from Evo, but more so that something _made_ him change. Grian didn’t talk about Evo very often, he had told Taurtis what happened, a few days after Taurtis had popped up out of the ground, late at night in his Hermitville house. Taurtis had sat there in silence, listening to Grian talk from the bed next to his.

At some point it started to sound like he was talking to himself more than to Taurtis.

After that night he didn’t mention them. Not on his own, anyway. It made Taurtis feel conflicted, he wanted to know more, about his friend’s time with the Watchers, about what they did to him, why they had destroyed their world… but he knew it wasn’t his place to ask. He’d just had hope, in time, Grian would open up to him a little more.

* * *

“Taurtis, honestly, you’re not going to die.”

Grian was hovering over the side of his base in the futuristic district, both himself and Taurtis stationed at the very top. Out of everything new Taurtis had seen, the elytra’s were by far the scariest, and he was more than happy to never even attempt to use them.

That wasn’t going to work for Grian, it seemed.

“That’s easy for you to say!” Taurtis snapped back, leaning his body against the concrete that shot up at the edge of the base_ (seriously, why didn’t Grian have any handrails up here?)_, “You’ve got _wings!”_

Grian signed slightly, “I mean, you’ve _also_ got wings on right now, technically.”

“Nuh-uh! These things barely count!” Taurtis jostled the strap clipped around his chest slightly, “This just feels like a weird, oversized backpack you can’t even put anything in, cause the backpack part is just two big pieces of… of whatever an elytra’s made out of!”

Grian sighed properly this time, landing in front of his friend. He crossed his arms over his chest, cocking his head to the side, “Taurtis, even if you fell, I’d catch you. Even if I _didn’t _catch you, _which I would, _you’d just land in the water, and you’d be fine always.”

Taurtis took a breath, gathering his nerves for a moment. When he opened his eyes, he looked over the side of the base, groaning at the height. He took another breath, turning around and walking a few paces away. Before Grian could say anything, he turned and looked at him, faux bravery on his face.

“I’m gonna run for it.”

He didn’t give Grian a chance to respond, running at the edge as fast as he could. With his eyes closed. Yelling.

Grian’s eyes widened at the sight of his friend bolting towards him, quickly backing up over the edge and hovering a little out of the way. Taurtis wasn’t thinking, just moving one foot in front of the other, until-

There wasn’t ground under him anymore.

And then he forgot everything Grian had told him, only focusing on that he was falling.

He opened his eyes, seeing the ocean rushing up to greet him, and then he shut his eyes again, his yelling turning to screaming.

His screaming turning to a painful yelp as he felt something grab his ankle, stopping his descent suddenly. He squinted his eyes open, glancing up at Grian who was holding him upside down, his wings beating against the wind. Taurtis furrowed his eyebrows, kicking at his friend with his other foot slightly,

“Dude! That hurt! You could’ve pulled my leg off!” He huffed, crossing his arms over his chest. Grian looked at him in disbelief,

“I told you I was going to catch you, and I did, I don’t see how you can be complaining about this.”

“You could’ve used your magic to grab me! You’re useless, dude.” Taurtis flopped back, hanging upside down again.

Grian glared at his friend, a small grin spreading onto his face.

“Oh, oh no Taurtis, my hands are slipping,” Grian deadpanned, loosening his grip on Taurtis’s ankle slightly, “Taurtis, I’m just so useless, I can’t hold on.”

Taurtis shot back up, his eyes widening as he looked at his friend, “Grian, Grian _don’t_!”

“I can’t stop it Taurtis, it's out of my control.”

His hands loosened more, and Taurtis felt his heart lurch,

“You’re not useless! I take it back!” Taurtis cried out desperately, trying to grab at Grian’s hands unsuccessfully.

Grian blinked.

“Too late.”

And Taurtis was falling again.

He yelled against the wind again, his stomach dropping as he fell, a little over halfway down the base now,

_“Taurtis! Use a firework!”_

Grian’s cry cut through the wind in his ears, and without thinking twice, he pressed the button on the device strapped to his hand, _(“This makes the fireworks go,” Grian explained, strapping the mechanism to his hand, “When you need to go up, or faster, press this.”)_

His stomach lurched again at the sudden direction change, and the fireworks were _loud _in his ears, even through his headphones. He was pushed up towards Grian again, stopping in the air for a second as gravity took hold again,

but this time he wasn’t falling, now parallel to the ground, the elytra opened up behind him, gliding him slowly downwards. Taurtis opened his eyes, his arms out beside him as if to balance himself, and he looked out at the horizon, laughing slightly.

“You’re doing it!”

Taurtis flinched at Grian’s voice as he flew in front of him, a grin splitting his face in two, eye’s twinkling mischievously. Grian continued to fly around him (If Taurtis didn’t know better he’d say he was showing off), and when they were close enough to the ground, he grabbed his hands, helping him land on his feet.

“Woo! Taurtis!” Grian cheered, throwing his hands into the air, “You didn’t die!”

“I didn’t die!” Taurtis cheered back, just before punching Grian in the arm.

Grian whined, rubbing his arm, “What was that for?”

Taurtis blinked at him, “Dude! _You dropped me!”_

“It was the only way you were going to do it! It’s like with birds, I had to push you out of the nest.”

“I don’t think birds dangle their children in the air before dropping them!”

Grian sighed playfully, “You’re never happy, are you?”

“Not when I get dropped to my death, no.”

“I would’ve caught you if something bad happened!”

Taurtis snickered, unclipping the elytra and handing it over to Grian, “Well I know one thing for sure, I’m never doing that again.”

He walked towards the entrance of the base, Grian following behind,

“Well, I use to say I was only going to use it every so often, and then I never took it off, so…” Grian argued back, putting the elytra into his inventory and grabbing Taurtis as they reached the drop into the base, carrying him down into it.

Taurtis looked back at him once they landed, “See! Who needs an elytra when I have you to fly me everywhere.”

Grian rolled his eyes, “Dude, I’m not a taxi service.”

Taurtis giggled to himself quietly, watching his friend walk over to a mess of shulker boxes in the corner. Things were different, sure,

But that didn’t mean they were worse.


End file.
